casing until he’d located the bolted-on access panels in its underside. He had a pretty good idea of what was behind them.
He knew the answer.
He turned. Pelham was standing a few feet away, watching his every move like a crouched leopard watching an antelope.
‘Meaning that if I refuse, you’ll hurt my boy.’
‘I hope that won’t be necessary.’
‘So I agree to help you, and then what? You’ll just let us both walk away, go home? You take me for a complete idiot? You think I don’t understand what’s going to happen to Rory and me if I give you what you want? I don’t know what kind of fool would agree to a deal like that.’ Adam took a step closer to him. The guard was watching him with a frown, and the gun was pointing his way. But he didn’t care. ‘So I’m making you a new deal.’
‘A new deal,’ Pelham echoed blankly.
‘That’s right. You’re going to start listening to
‘These are my terms. One, you let me take Rory safely home. Two, you let me see for myself exactly where this cosy little place of yours is. Three, you give me your guarantee that neither my son nor I will ever be harmed or threatened in any way again. Then, and only then, I’ll agree to come back here and help you make that thing work.’
Pelham jutted out his chin and raised an eyebrow. Said nothing.
Adam pointed at the machine. ‘Play fair with me and I’ll give you what you want. But cross the line, and I’ll make sure the authorities will be on this place like flies on Rottweiler shit. And I’ll screw up that machine so bad, you’ll have to sell it for recycling into Coke tins. Don’t think I don’t know how.’
‘Have you finished?’ Pelham asked quietly.
‘That’s all I have to say. Think about it.’
‘Quiet little spot you’ve found for yourself here, Lenny,’ Ben said.
Salt backed away. His eyes were wide and fixed on Ben as he reached his right hand back and fumbled for something on the Formica top behind him. Then his fingers closed on the wooden handle of the long barbecue fork and he snatched it up and pointed it like a weapon at Ben’s stomach.
‘Stay away from me or I’ll skewer you.’
Ben looked at the fork. ‘I think you’d better put that thing down before you go and hurt yourself.’
‘Who sent you? Who are you working for?’
‘Just myself. Sorry to disappoint.’
‘What do you want?’
‘To talk, Lenny. Nothing more.’
Salt clutched the fork tighter, standing there in a puddle of beer.
‘You look like you’ve pissed yourself,’ Ben said. ‘Aren’t you going to put that fork down?’
‘You’ll kill me.’
‘Lenny, if I’d wanted to kill you, you wouldn’t even have seen me.’
Salt blanched.
Ben reached slowly into his pocket, took out his wallet and handed him a business card. ‘This is who I am and what I do.’ He nodded to the laptop on the bed. ‘Check out the website. There’s a picture of me.’
‘I’m not connected here. No email, no internet.’
‘Scared they might trace you?’
Salt nodded sheepishly.
‘You need to do a better job. It wasn’t hard to find you. And your snap-and-run routine needs work too.’
Salt was still frozen there, clutching the fork. The last of the beer had seeped out of the can and was trickling across the vinyl floor.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Ben said. ‘I haven’t got all day.’ He stepped over, snatched the fork before Salt could react, and threw it out of the open caravan doorway. It whistled through the air and stuck juddering in a tree trunk.
Salt kept gaping speechlessly at Ben.
‘Now clean that beer up, and let’s go outside and talk.’
Salt hesitated, then tore off a length of kitchen roll from a dispenser next to the stove. He used the paper to mop up the puddle on the floor while Ben grabbed two more beer cans from the fridge and led the way outside. Salt joined him, watching him warily, and they sat opposite one another at the picnic table.
Ben snapped open his beer. ‘I’m sorry if I scared you before, Lenny. I didn’t want to.’
Salt grunted in reply, opened his own can with a spit of foam and took a long gulp, keeping his eyes on Ben. The business card was still clenched in his fist, and he scrutinised it carefully, first its printed front, then the blank back, staring at it as though it was the lost map to the secret US Government alien farm at Roswell.
‘No invisible ink,’ Ben said. ‘No holographic cryptograms.’
Salt looked up. ‘Tactical Training Unit? What does that mean?’
‘It’s my business. Just a training school.’
‘Bullshit. It means you’re military.’
‘Was military,’ Ben said. ‘Not any more.’
‘Sure. That’s what you would say, isn’t it?’ Salt sneered. ‘I don’t talk to people like you.’
‘I’m being completely honest with you. I’ve been out of the military for a long time now. I left there to do my own thing, and now I teach people how to do the same. I could give you the phone numbers of a dozen people who’d vouch for that.’
‘Teach them to do what?’ Salt asked suspiciously.
‘To protect vulnerable people and stop bad things happening to them,’ Ben said. ‘And if something bad’s already happened, to help them get out of it. To find people who’ve been kidnapped, or who’ve got into trouble.’
‘So you’re a detective?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘A cop?’
‘Definitely not,’ Ben said.
Salt narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you looking for someone now?’
Ben nodded. ‘Yes, I am. I’m looking for a young woman who might have got herself mixed up in something very dangerous. And I’m hoping you might be able to help me with information. I’ll pay you for your time.’ He dug some notes out of his wallet and held them up so that Salt could count them.
Salt’s eyes flicked down to the money, then back up to meet Ben’s. ‘Cash up front.’
Ben tossed the money across the table. Salt palmed it and stuffed it in his pocket. He smiled. ‘Now, what if I don’t feel like talking?’
‘Then I might feel like snapping your neck,’ Ben said.
Salt swallowed. ‘What information do you want?’
‘I want to know about Kammler.’
